Winter Song
by CitronPresse
Summary: Four Christmases - 1994, 2005, 2007, 2010. Pairing: Mark/Addison, references to Derek/Addison. Spoilers for Grey's 6.10 and the promo for 6.11 and Private Practice 3.11.


A/N: written for escapismrocks for the xmasesmissed fic exchange on livejournal. The title and subtitles are from _Winter Song_ by Sarah Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson.

* * *

_1994: My words will be your light_

She was expecting solitude and a little fresh air. But when Addison steps outside, she discovers Mark a few yards from the kitchen door. He is sitting in the snow, knees drawn up halfway to his chest, leaning back against the wall, leather jacket pulled tightly around himself to provide inadequate warmth (she notices he's shivering) and puffing on a cigarette.

He smirks halfheartedly and tries to pretend he's not cold, jamming the hand without the cigarette into the pocket of his jeans. But she's seen him now, exposed. And when she speaks, her voice is several shades softer (by instinct) than the slightly clipped manner she normally uses to address the boy she's always more or less dismissed as her boyfriend's asinine best friend.

"They were all wondering where you were." She squats down tentatively a few feet away from him, not quite committing to staying but not quite leaving either. "They expected you back half an hour ago. But . . ." she hesitates (she's still unused to slang, although she's learning gradually; and she's unsure how her awkwardness in the face of the Shepherds' Catholic festive spirit will go down with him), "they were jonesing for midnight mass."

He laughs quietly and nods. "Figured if I waited long enough, they'd go without me," he says. She waits for the smart-ass remark (or something dirty): he never usually opens his mouth around her without one or the other. It doesn't come. Instead, simply, "You didn't want to go?"

Addison shakes her head.

"It's a family tradition. You better get used to it if you're planning on sticking around."

She swallows. "I'm a W.A.S.P," she says (well, that and Mrs. Shepherd's indefinably just shy of warm scrutiny intimidates her). She shrugs quickly. "What's your excuse?"

Mark sighs and takes a drag on his cigarette, breathing out a mixture of smoke and frosty air. "Don't get me wrong. I love the Shepherds. But sometimes all that yuletide enthusiasm is hard to take," he says. "And then there's the fact that God and I aren't exactly on speaking terms. And even if we were," he glances across the wintry backyard, "it's prettier out here than inside a church and nobody talks crap at you about cherishing your mother and father at Christmas." He stubs out the cigarette in the snow, eases the pack from his pocket and pulls out another. "You want one?"

"No, thank you," Addison says, about to add something like 'you shouldn't either' - he is, after all, a med student. But something about the cold and the snow and his unexpected honesty makes her change her mind. "Well, actually, yes . . . may I . . . ?"

He hands her a cigarette and his disposable lighter, and she struggles, making feeble sparks, until he shifts closer to her, taking the lighter, cupping his hands around hers until the cigarette catches light. "There you go," he says, as she makes her first full inhale. She tracks him with her eyes as he moves back to the dent he made in the snow, the warm sensation where he touched her still lingering on her hands.

He smiles at her and she splutters out a series of coughs. She tells herself it's the smoke hitting her lungs, because that's easier than the thought that her boyfriend's thoroughly dislikable best friend just turned the trivial act of lighting a cigarette into possibly one of the most intimate moments of her life, and that he did it without really trying or noticing. (She wonders if this is the reason - not the obvious good looks and the embarrassingly cheesy lines - all those girls fall into bed with him.)

"Try not to choke to death, Addison," he teases. "Derek would kill me."

She laughs. It's not really funny, but it relieves the tension that built up between them (or at least in her overactive mind). In the same spirit, she says, "Derek mentioned you were having dinner with your parents this evening."

"Yeah," he says, then puts his forearms on his knees, the cigarette hanging from his right hand, and dips his head. He lets out a deep, involuntary sigh, and Addison is immediately ashamed of her intrusion.

"I'm sorry," she says, pecking at the cigarette for courage.

"No problem." He smiles again, but weakly this time. "It is what it is. I just wish we could call it quits on the happy family Christmas Eve dinners. 'Cause all that happens is . . . " He shakes his head. "Never mind. You don't want to hear this."

"It's okay. My family is . . . well, they're not exactly the Shepherds, shall we say. You can tell me if you want to."

For a split second, he studies her, uncertain. Then, "I hate this time of year." He lifts the cigarette to his lips, but changes his mind. "I mean . . . it's okay once New Year's Eve comes around. You get smashed, you get laid, maybe someone has a little weed and," a lazy shrug, making out he doesn't care, but a slight softening in his tone gives away something like cautious hope, "it's a new year. You get a chance to start over." He lifts the cigarette again and takes a long drag.

She nods. She understands the desire for a fresh start. And she's surprised (again) because she never knew there was a reason other than self-gratification behind the way he chooses to ring in midnight.

"But Christmas Eve? The annual dinner in the fucking war zone laughably known as my family home? I hate it. I fucking hate it." He turns to her, his eyes searching for something that's not hers to give. "It doesn't matter how much I drink, how well I think I'm gonna cope, whatever brilliant sarcasm I serve up over dessert, they always make me feel five years old again."

Silence falls then, except that Addison's heart is thumping so hard she's certain it's audible outside the cavity of her chest. She hopes it's just Christmas and cold air and compassion, because anything else is not an option. But she can't take her eyes off him (and she can't help falling for him just a little).

"Sorry." He catches her stare and, misinterpreting, grins sheepishly. "About the unmanly spilling my guts thing."

"No," she almost stammers. "Please don't apologize." She pulls herself together and reminds herself sternly that he's Derek's friend. "I think it's . . . nice. It's nice that I'm finally getting to know you."

"Yeah?" he asks, as if he doesn't quite believe her.

"Yeah," she says.

"You want to stay out here with me for a while?"

"That would be . . ." She needs a word that implies acceptance without revealing how much she wants to say 'yes,' but all that comes to mind is 'nice,' and repeating that like an idiot seems about as revealing as you can get. So she just scrambles up, (awkwardly holding the unfamiliar cigarette that she doesn't want to smoke now, but doesn't quite want to discard because he gave it to her), then plops down next to him, tucking her coat underneath herself.

They sit in the snow, watching the colors of the Shepherds' Christmas lights reflect across the sparkling ground. It feels a little like magic, until a car pulls up outside the front of the house and Addison hears Derek's voice calling her.

* * *

_2005: The storm is coming soon_

She's crying. Sobbing, in fact. Choking out wretched tears that ruin her carefully applied make-up and dampen her seductively bronzed décolletage, as she clings to the cell phone that conveyed the injury to her ego and her heart.

"You're ridiculous, Addison," she sniffles. And she is. The original gift that nobody wants: a complete package of little black dress and killer heels, professionally styled hair, red lipstick and utterly dashed hope. She keeps reminding herself that Derek's a neurosurgeon, the holidays are one of the worst times of the year for emergent head traumas, but her self-pity rejects it all out of hand. She wanted to spend Christmas Eve with her husband and that's the only thought that sticks.

She kicks off her shoes, taking perverse satisfaction when one flies cross the hardwood floor and hits the baseboard, and pads aimlessly into the kitchen on a search for wine. But somewhere between the refrigerator and the corkscrew, she changes course and sits down on a stool at the kitchen island, eyes fixed on her cell. She shouldn't be doing this but somehow she can't stop herself and, although she tries to talk herself out of it with each next key-press and nearly hangs up when she hears the ringtone at the other end, she's still there when he answers.

"Hey, Addie," he says, louder than necessary over the background noise of Christmas music and laughter.

"Mark."

There's a pause, the faint sound of a woman's voice, Mark saying, 'Give me a minute, baby, and I'm all yours,' then he's back. "What's up, Add?"

He sounds distracted and her heart sinks. Somehow, he's always there for her; over the years, he's become her friend (perhaps, on occasion, more _her_ friend than Derek's). Tonight he doesn't have time for her, and even though she gets (kind of) that he has a life, _tonight _it feels like the final blow.

"Nothing," she mumbles, not doing anything to stop the quivering of her bottom lip. "Merry Christmas, Mark." She hangs up before she dissolves into full-blown crying again, cutting off the soft, questioning, "Addison?" on the other end of the phone.

Forty minutes later, when the doorbell rings (and there's still no word from Derek) she's dressed in old jeans and a hole-ridden sweater that she stole from Archer when they were teenagers, with make-up half removed and half still smeared across her face.

Cleanser-soaked cotton ball in hand, she trudges to the door, expecting disappointment in the form of carolers, or the outside chance of Derek wielding some kind of flowery, chocolaty and alcoholic apology.

Instead, it's Mark, leaning against the doorframe, grinning at her.

"Hello," he says, slurring the syllables a little.

In her imagination she smiles dryly, although she suspects the actual expression is closer to pouting. Either way, she hasn't quite forgiven him for abandoning her in her hour of need; and she was just getting used to the idea of spending the evening miserable and alone and wallowing in isolation.

"Why are you here?" she demands, then runs her fingers through her hair, suddenly self-conscious of how awful she must look.

"You called me," he says. "You sounded sad."

It's absolutely guileless. And even though it's probably just because he's been drinking, it makes her chest ache in the confused, happy, slightly heart-wrenching way she was hoping to reserve for Christmas Eve sex with Derek.

"Well . . ." She gulps a little. She was aiming for a sturdy 'no, I'm fine,' but tears leak from her eyes and her voice trembles. "No, I'm . . . "

"Christmas sucks, huh?" He rights himself from his leaning position and, without invitation, walks through the front door. "C'mere, Add," he says and folds her in a hug.

There are little ice crystals on the fabric of his cashmere coat, and she rests her cheek against the combination of surface cold and body heat as he strokes her back.

It's comforting – _too_ comforting. So she pulls back a little in his arms, taking in for the first time the black suit under the coat and the polished shoes. "You're all dressed up," she says.

"Tonight's object of lust was the picky type," he says. "Rumor has it she's worth the extra effort. Gives mind-blowing –"

"You're disgusting," Addison breaks in, but can't help smiling.

"Says the woman in the hundred-year-old sweater with goop on her face."

"I looked much better earlier," she protests, dabbing the cotton ball uselessly at her eyes for smudged mascara and rubbing the other hand over her face to catch stray cleanser.

"Good to know," he says, and ducks, laughing, when she swats at him. Then his eyes meet hers. "You always look good, Addie. Even when you look like hell."

There is a moment of something she might call understanding if either of them actually understood what sometimes happens between them. She reaches up and strokes his face lightly. He flinches a little, but stays put as her fingertips trace his cheekbone. "That's a good line," she says. "And I'm sure it's a well used part of your repertoire. But," she pauses, then risks it, "you don't need lines."

"Well," he lowers his voice to a gravelly undertone in her ear, "maybe not with you," then slowly, with a hint of regret, moves out of her reach. "Derek's dad," he clears his throat, "always liked to roast chestnuts at Christmas. You like chestnuts?"

The intentional reference to Derek and the change of subject jar a little. But despite the evening's sensitivities, she doesn't feel rejected. The boundaries needed redrawing and, if anything, the fact that he hasn't completely massed his defenses makes her feel even closer to him. So she searches her memories and offers, "Marron glacés? I had a French nanny once and she liked -"

"Chestnuts," he counters. "Off of a brazier. On 53rd Street."

Addison shakes her head.

"Get your coat," Mark says. "We're taking a little walk."

Later, eating hot chestnuts from a greasy paper bag in the cold Manhattan air, Addison wonders guiltily if she likes this better than the Christmas Eve she planned with Derek.

She doesn't have an answer. She just knows that when the clock strikes midnight and Mark says, 'Merry Christmas,' and kisses her (as chastely as he knows how, but finding a sensitive spot close to her ear anyway), a shiver of pleasure runs up her spine that shouldn't be there.

For the first conscious moment in the entire time they've been friends, she lets herself imagine what it might be like to sleep with him.

* * *

_2007: December never felt so wrong_

She's sick. Something respiratory and revolting that invites endless 'I told you so's' from Mark about her decision to remain in the precipitation capital of the world.

He brings her Coca Cola, bought from a grocery store where they have the cherry kind she likes and chilled to perfection in the little hotel room refrigerator. It soothes her sore throat and eases her nausea and, once, she would have found all the care he's taking charming, endearing even. Now, honestly, she would prefer he got the regular stuff from room service or, better yet, went away and left her alone.

It's Christmas: the first one she's been free to spend with Mark. But she doesn't want her dirty mistress now, and every well-worn interaction just reminds her of everything she has lost.

While Mark dozes next to her, fully clothed on the bed she doesn't want to share with him, she remembers one year ago this week.

Derek met her at Joe's and informed her that Meredith Grey wasn't a fling. He fell in love, he said, and that didn't go away because he decided to try and repair his marriage. She sipped hot buttered rum and silently, in her head, talked herself out of crying or yelling, while her heart hurt so much she was almost convinced there was a physical reality to breaking that her medical education had left out.

She can remember thinking, when Derek went to the bar to get fresh drinks, that she had fallen in love too and that, no, it didn't go away. She can remember taking her cell out of her purse and pulling up Mark's name and wishing it was one of those cold, illicit Christmases he warmed with his unscheduled presence and not a charade played out in a barroom with a husband who didn't want her, whatever bleakly optimistic promises he made. She can remember stroking the little illuminated screen with one finger, wishing she had the courage to go back to New York and face her demons and tell Mark she loved him.

But that was distance and loneliness and nostalgia. Now he suffocates her and all she can see is his faults. She wonders why she ever felt connected to him, why she convinced herself he had hidden depths. In the end, he really was just Derek's asinine (former) best friend because, when you dig past the first layer of his vulnerability (the one he presumably shows to the complicated girls who need a little more than the cheesy lines to take the bait) all he knows how to do is cause pain and disappointment.

What they had was smoke and mirrors, mixed up with a few Christmas lights. He just gave her orgasms and helped her ruin her marriage to the real love of her life.

He wakes up and nudges her, rousing her grudgingly from her thoughts. "You feeling any better?" he asks in that gruffly muted voice that made delicious shivers once, but now only causes a stagnant chill.

"Yes, thank you," she avoids, inching away from him when he tries to wrap an arm around her.

"Something wrong?" He half sits and goes to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, but she angles her head out of reach.

"No," she says. She's too drained to deal with the rigmarole of breaking up today, so she turns back and kisses him, acting out horniness until the real thing has a chance to catch up.

She doesn't want his affection and she figures the quickest way to redirect him is the hot, hard sex that's the only thing she really likes about him anymore.

* * *

_2010: Is love alive?_

"I made breakfast," Mark says, sliding the tray of coffee, juice and eggs across the bed, as he gets back in himself and drops his customary, slow morning kiss on her shoulder. "And I gave Eve a bottle of formula and put her down for a nap. And," he grimaces playfully, "I fed your cat. Not that the little bastard was grateful."

"His name is Milo," she corrects. "You're very well trained, though." A teasing grin works its way across her face. "Who'd've thought you'd turn out so domesticated? I guess it goes with the whole being a grandpa thing."

"Can we please go easy on the G word?" He winces and glances meaningfully at the folds of comforter covering his lap. "'Cause I have big plans for part two of your Christmas gift. And the grandpa talk? Not doing anything good in that department."

But he leans in and bites her earlobe anyway, making her giggle, then hands her a cup of coffee.

They are a strange family unit: two cheaters, Mark's granddaughter and an inherited red tabby cat. But they make it work.

Having Eve in their lives is karma at its most ironic, tangled, painful and yet cutely, blissfully joyful: the one child with Mark's genes that everyone wants (because, although he tells everyone he got stuck with her, Addison watched him negotiate with her grandmother for custody and could read his uncharacteristic tact as a kind of love.)

Addison thought she was done with him. But time made them both a little sadder and a little more grown up and then, in a moment of crisis, he trusted her to be his friend, and the best neonatal surgeon he knew and save his pregnant daughter's life. She couldn't. She failed him (again, she thinks, but only privately, because he would contradict her that it was at least mutual and probably all his fault). But Eve survived, and while she fought for her life in an incubator, he came to his ex-lover's Oceanside house to fight for his sanity.

And he stayed.

He left people and feelings behind in Seattle, but he doesn't seem to need to talk about it, and she doesn't seem to need to ask.

She understands how it looks. She used to care about such things, but now all she cares about is what is real inside. Whatever people think and gossip behind their backs, they did not fall on the couch in a moment of desperate fucking. It was not comfort sex born out of shared failure. He slept for three days straight, because it was the only way he knew how to grieve for a daughter he hadn't wanted, barely knew, didn't much like, but somehow loved anyway. Then, one morning, as Addison lay curled next to him, he took her in his arms and held her, for hours, not speaking, almost not moving until they made a kind of extreme, hushed love that she will never be able to give words to.

(The best definition she has is the way, ever since then, her heart thumps whenever he touches her.)

"I think I always loved you," she has a sudden, urgent need to tell him. "From that first Christmas Eve. Somewhere, underneath, I always loved you. Even when -"

"Add." Softly, Mark stops her. He strokes the side of her face to make her look at him, brushes her lips with his. "We're good. We just took the long way round getting to know each other." He holds his hand out to take her cup. "Here."

He moves the breakfast things out of their way and, stupidly, she misses him for the few seconds he is gone. She almost holds her breath until he's next to her again and she's sinking onto her back, guiding him down with her as they share kisses, his erection building harder against her as her body floods warm. She traces a finger along the scuff on his jaw line, and he catches her hand in his and kisses her palm.

"We're here." He murmurs the words, smiling close to her lips. "We're good. Merry Christmas, Addie."

"Merry Christmas, Mark," she whispers, and it feels like love, how it's supposed to be.


End file.
